Roger Collis

I offer no prescient predictions about business travel in the downturn. Or in the upturn as travel rebounds, as it always does.   Like economic forecasters, I can only react to events with sapient hindsight and reflect on the past mistakes of others.

But it’s an ill wind as they say… And indeed, the economic downturn has been good for business, according to an American Express survey of senior UK finance executives over half (58 percent) of whom reveal that decisions made during the downturn have actually improved their firms’ long term prospects. Click here

An interview with Bea Tollman – founder and president of Red Carnation Hotels.

RC: Could we please talk about what I like to call the ‘boutique experience’ and what it means to you?

BT: Well, the boutique experience to me is the fact that people feel they are almost walking into a home where the welcome is warm and genuine and where they are recognized for whom they are… but they’re a guest and every guest should feel special; and that’s what we really aim to do. When guests arrive at the hotel they do feel they are warmly welcomed; and made to feel special and comfortable.   Click here

The courtship ritual invariably starts with a discreet phone call.

‘Are you free to talk? We’re looking for a marketing vice president for a biotech group in Geneva.’ (There follows a mouthwatering description of your dream job.) ‘Do you know anybody who’d be suitable? You mean, you might be interested yourself?  Why, that’s terrific…’ Click here

Few things are more disconcerting on a trip than to wake up in a hotel room, and for a few bewildering seconds wondering where I am, which hotel, which city, why am I there?   Even which day it is, never mind the time. Click here

We have all been there: Stuck in a windowless meeting room, fighting to keep awake, surreptitiously checking our e-mails,  letting the imagination roam behind half-closed eyes and lips  tightly pursed to judiciously steepled hands, or even thinking about lunch, or plans for the evening, or making mental lists. Click here